You never really know what the future holds, so there is really no need to worry since none of us can really tell what will happen next. Unless, you are one of the creators of Inspector Gadget, The Simpsons, Family Guy, or Futurama. Because if that’s the case, you know exactly what will happen next, and you probably can’t wait to illustrate it and put in on your show. This list compiled by Bored Panda, shares all of the times the creators of these iconic shows have accidentally predicted how the future will look like, and some are surprisingly accurate.

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“Alabama will not stand for the loss of life in our state, and with this heinous crime, we must respond with punishment,” the statement said. “These four victims deserved a future, and Mr. Samra took that opportunity away from them and did so with no sense of remorse. This evening justice has been delivered to the loved ones of these victims, and it signals that Alabama does not tolerate murderous acts of any nature.”

Alabama currently has 176 more prisoners awaiting execution. All but two of them were convicted of murder; 65 have been on death row for more than 20 years.

While death penalty opponents like Ms. Cox wonder how Christian conservatives like the governor can oppose abortion but uphold execution, others say the two stances become coherent when viewed through a lens of innocence and guilt.

“In a sense, it’s perfectly comprehensible,” said Mark Silk, a professor of religion at Trinity College. “Their view is that unborn babies and fetuses are innocent life. They’ve done nothing to merit the death penalty. Whereas murderers have done something to merit the death penalty. It’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It’s how they look at the world.”

Professor Silk said that white evangelicals in particular, who make up more than half the electorate in Alabama, may run into difficulty when men or women “find their way to Jesus” while on death row.

“So much of evangelicalism has to do with conversion,” he said. “That’s such a core experience for them. A murderer or rapist finding their way to God is as powerful a manifestation of conversion that you can find.”

Ms. Cox said she found the argument that life is something to be protected only when it is innocent to be “flimsy.”

“People should be still held accountable, but there should be more nuance,” she said. “You are not the sum of the worst thing you’ve ever done.”

The Catholic Church’s teachings oppose both abortion and capital punishment on similar grounds.

“Pro-life values are meaningless when they are inconsistent,” said Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group working to end capital punishment. “The sanctity of human life applies to each and every person, innocent and guilty,” she said, adding that the church teaches that a person’s God-given dignity “is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes.”

“As Pope Francis has said, ‘There is no just penalty that is not open to hope,’” Ms. Murphy said. “That is why the death penalty is neither Christian nor human.”

A scholar of evangelical Christianity said that most evangelicals in Alabama probably feel no tension between support for the death penalty and opposition to abortion.

“Most conservative evangelicals wouldn’t think twice about executing someone and then going to a pro-life march the next day,” said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College. He said their views have often been shaped by the political battles that have raged over social issues in recent decades, so that, for example, they also tend to oppose spending tax money on government programs that might reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

Progressive evangelicals see the issues differently, Mr. Fea said, but “they are a minority in the state of Alabama and most of the evangelical South.”

The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical denomination, says its support of the death penalty has roots in biblical teachings. “Imposing the death penalty can help the murderer restore the broken relationship with their creator, not just with humankind,” says an article posted by an arm of the convention that addresses public issues. “While we have an interest in a criminal’s return to society, we should be even more concerned with the state of their soul.”

Facebook is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency in early 2020, allowing users to make digital payments in a dozen countries.  The currency, dubbed GlobalCoin, would enable Facebook’s 2.4 billion monthly users to change dollars and other international currencies into its digital coins. The coins could then be used to buy things on the internet and in shops and other outlets, or to transfer money without needing a bank account.  Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Facebook, last month met the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, to discuss the plans, according to the BBC.  Zuckerberg has also discussed the proposal, known as Project Libra, with US Treasury officials and is in talks with money transfer firms, including Western Union, to develop cheap, safe ways for people to send and receive money. A report last year said Facebook is working on a cryptocurrency that would let users transfer money using WhatsApp, its encrypted mobile-messaging app.

“Payments is one of the areas where we have an opportunity to make it a lot easier,” Zuckerberg told the company’s developer conference last month. “I believe it should be as easy to send money to someone as it is to send a photo.”  In order to try to stabilise the digital currency the company is looking to peg its value to a basket of established currencies, including the US dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen.  Facebook is also looking at paying users fractions of a coin for activities such as viewing ads and interacting with content related to online shopping, similar to loyalty schemes run by retailers.  However, experts believe that regulatory issues and Facebook’s poor track record on data privacy and protection are likely to prove to be the biggest hurdles to making the currency a success.

“Facebook is not regulated in the same way as banks are, and the cryptocurrency industry is, by definition almost, unregulated,” said Rebecca Harding, chief executive of banking trade data analytics firm Coriolis Technologies.  “In the UK, for example, there are no formal laws that govern this market because cryptocurrencies are not legal tender. Facebook has also had issues with protecting user data in the past few years and this may well be an issue for it as it tries to provide guarantees to users that their financial information is safe.”

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Los Angeles can deal with killing kids is OK, no ban on New York.  But heaven forbid, saving one, no go to Alabama!!  Really, maybe a better example for the United States and take care of your own.  Get Real!

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has voted to institute a one-year travel ban to Alabama in response to the state’s recently passed pro-life law.  The ban, which was authored by Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis “imposes a one year travel restriction to the State of Alabama for official LA County business, except for emergencies and other limited situations.” “This challenge by Alabama and other states would overturn decades of precedent. It is an attack not only confined to the residents of those states, but an act of aggression upon all of us,” Supervisor Solis said  The board also voted to send a letter to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and Alabama leaders urging them to repeal their abortion ban immediately.  The county will send a similar letter to political leaders in other states that have passed or advanced pro-life bills in recent months, including Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Utah. The Los Angeles County isn’t the first to institute a travel ban to Alabama.  Last week, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold banned her staff from traveling to the state. Maryland has threatened to do the same.

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Huawei is winning over more and more Apple fans in China as the escalated trade tensions have stoked “nationalist sentiment,” according to the South China Morning Post.  China’s consumers are increasingly favoring their domestic brands after the U.S. stepped up its action against Huawei, the paper said. The article cited a few anecdotes where people switched to Huawei smartphones from their beloved iPhones to show their support for the country and Chinese brands.  “It’s kind of embarrassing to pull an iPhone out of your pocket nowadays when all the company executives use Huawei,” Sam Li, who works at a state-owned telecom company in Beijing, told the South China Morning Post. He added his company offers employees a Huawei discount.  The nationalist rhetoric has gotten louder in China after President Donald Trump blacklisted Huawei, effectively halting its ability to buy American-made parts and components. Comments like “support Huawei” and “hang in there” have become increasingly popular on Chinese social media platforms and some people said Google’s decision to cut ties with Huawei is like “cutting the ground from under one’s foot,” according to the Hong Kong-based newspaper.

Now the anti-Apple sentiment in China is creating more headaches for the tech giant, which is already suffering from the slowing iPhone demand. Shares of Apple have tumbled more than 13% in the past month as trade tensions intensified. The U.S. hiked tariffs on $200 billions worth of Chinese goods earlier in May. China retaliated by raising duties on $60 billion worth of U.S. imports to as high as 25%.  Goldman Sachs said Wednesday that if Apple’s products were banned in mainland China, its earnings could drop by 29%.  The trade worries have prompted many Wall Street analysts to cut their projections for Apple. HSBC reduced its price target on the tech giant to $174 per share from $180, while Credit Suisse also said Apple’s earnings per share would drop by about 15 cents a share for every 5% drop in greater China sales

— Click here to read the original story from the South China Morning Post.

We were visiting a rural malnutrition clinic. This doctor came up to us, “Did you bring money?” “No.” “Did you bring medicine?” “No.” “Well, then why are you here? Do you have blood?” I’m like “Yeah.”  And so she said, “I want that blood because I have a 2-year-old, Angelina, who’s basically at death’s door.” You could see it in her eyes, I mean, she’s just like terrorized, and I’ll never – I’ll never forget her eyes looking at me.

I just wanted to do whatever I could to help her, and I felt helpless. And these are easy answers, you know, we’re not trying to cure cancer, just babies hanging by a thread. That was a defining moment for me.

My name is Sarah Bowling and I’m the founder for Saving Moses. We’re a global humanitarian organization aimed for zero-to-five-year-olds where the need is most urgent and the care is least available. This is like the most fragile vulnerable time of a human’s life.

We do something very distinct called “nightcare.” So we take care of babies and toddlers of prostitute/sex workers in third world countries while they work.

So they come in, they give them a bath, they feed them dinner and then there’s playtime, and then they circle up after a little bit of time, circle up and do a little bit of discipline, self-control, so they sing songs, they have a little snack, they have a little prayer time and at the end they get to sing about Jesus, which is cool. And then we take them and put them up to bed.

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The controversy over a massive American flag is now reaching a new level as the company responsible for flying the flag is rallying community support to fight the City of Statesville, which has reportedly filed a lawsuit to have the flag removed.  Camping World posted a message to its Facebook page on Saturday saying the city has filed an injunction against Camping World, fining the company $50 per day going back to Oct. 15, 2018. That totals nearly $11,000.  An online petition has also been started at Change.org in support of the company keeping the flag flying. As of Monday morning, more than 7,900 people had signed the petition.  Channel 9 has covered the debate for years. In 2015, the state said the store couldn’t fly the flag because of a city ordinance.  The city’s lawsuit claims a flag within 100 feet of a highway cannot be larger than 25 by 40 feet.  The company’s CEO told Channel 9 similar flags are up at more than 200 stores across the country, including several cities in North Carolina, none of which have had any problems with them.  “I don’t care if it goes to $500 a day. It’s not coming down,” Marcus Lemonis, CEO and chairman of Camping World and Gander RV, said.  Lemonis said it’s personal to him.  “My family has been car dealers, had been car dealers since the 1960s, and our key trademark was always flying our flag in our dealership in south Florida,” he said. “My family is largely immigrants of the country.”  Council minutes from October show leaders tried to amend the ordinance to allow a flag of this size, but the motion failed 3 to 5.  The City of Statesville sent Channel 9 a statement saying Gander RV applied to fly a flag far smaller than the one the company put up.  A spokesperson said the city only started fining the company after asking it to replace the flag several times.

After reporting LA’s most notorious trash pile to the city’s 311 services hotline, the I-Team was told it could take up to 90 days before it’s cleaned up. An expert says there’s no time to waste

Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year’s record number of flea-borne typhus cases.

Even the city’s most notorious trash pile, located between downtown LA’s busy Fashion and Produce districts, continues to be a magnet for rats after it was cleaned up months ago. The rodents can carry typhus-infected fleas, which can spread the disease to humans through bacteria rubbed into the eyes or cuts and scrapes on the skin, resulting in severe flu-like symptoms.

The NBC4 I-Team first told Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office about the piles of filth in the 700 block of Ceres Avenue in October. At the time, he promised to make sure trash doesn’t pile up like that.

The garbage was cleaned after the interview, but conditions have worsened over the next seven months.

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